


Her Drowning

by reafterthought



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Angst, Canon, Depression, Drabble, Fallen Hero, Gen, Tragedy, drabble novel, element study, ffn challenge: diversity writing challenge, word count: 1501-2500 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-08 08:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reafterthought/pseuds/reafterthought
Summary: In the water that is her newfound power, she drowns.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, E6 – drabble novel with "chapters" exactly 100 words.

Amidst the flow of water, she drowns.

She is Sayaka, a magical girl. She is a healer. A water-warrior. A shield and sword.

Sometimes, the water drags her down, makes her drown.

Sometimes, she wishes she were air instead, so she could float, light, without weight. So she could breathe.

There's no breath to be had by water. No light. Just the extra weight that clings to her, keeps her a prisoner of gravity and that blue cellophane, keeps her downed.

If that little safety bubble around her pops, then she will be drowned.

She drowns.

But she still lives.


	2. Chapter 2

Water is heavy and unwieldly, but fluid. It weighs but it also carries her, and perhaps that's why she won't fall here, to a single crimson strike.

Or perhaps it's her own will to live, but Kyousuke wants to play the piano with all his heart and can't reach the miracle himself so she doesn't think it's that, or just that.

It's not fair he can't wish himself, but if she must bear the weight, then she will. The water is the weight of her promise, her responsibility –

And not just Kyousuke, but Mami who brought this lifeline to her.


	3. Chapter 3

Water is the potion in a desert and a curse adrift at sea, but it's power and it's power at her fingertips. The longer the battle wears, the more used to it she grows: the strange distribution of weight, the way she can dance in three dimensions…

And the way her body seems to knit itself together with every blow. It's painful; the water doesn't absorb those blows. But they won't make her fall. She's buoyant. She'll always float.

And there's not enough fire in the world to douse all the stage's water. She'll win in the end, against Kyouko.


	4. Chapter 4

She didn't win or lose which meant their ethical battle was still ongoing, even if their physical one had been suspended.

It didn't matter that Kyouko knew Mami. She didn't adhere to her principles at all. She simply sought survival for her own means – and Sayaka who fully intended to hold onto those principles. She'd given her wish to Kyousuke; she couldn't be selfish, after that. She couldn't be selfish regardless because she had something others didn't, and others needed.

She couldn't understand why someone would be selfish with their power, but fire burned all it touched and water soothed.


	5. Chapter 5

All the world’s a worry and she wondered if she was more attune to it now or simply blind before. There was misery everywhere, and the familiars latched onto it like starving beasts. It was all well and good to say only witches needed to be defeated because only the witches carried grief seeds, but the familiars caused far more damage, even if it was witches who spawned them.

So witches and familiars needed to go down. Kyouko told her she was wasting her time. Homura said as much too, in more dressed up words.

But they didn’t know despair.


	6. Chapter 6

It nibbled at her, as her gem grew dark.

It's despair. She knew it was. What she didn't know was what would happen if it went all the way black, if she ran out of power. Would a grief seed at that point make any difference at all? Or will she have used up all the power she'd gained and she'd have to watch from the sidelines thereafter?

It shouldn't matter, she thinks. She'd achieved her wish. Kyousuke was happy, playing the piano again. She'd saved him. And she'd saved many a person thereafter, by fighting Witches and Familiars alike.


	7. Chapter 7

It was hard, fighting. It was harder still, fighting all alone. Madoka wasn't a magical girl and that was fine. Madoka didn't have a Kyousuke to do this for. But Kyouko and Homura both were and they preferentially fought the Witches. They were greedy. They'd rather have the grief seeds, keep their soul gems pure.

It became more important when Madoka got a hold of it. When she tossed the soul gem off the bridge, as though that would stop her fighting.

It almost did. Kyubey said she was the soul gem now, and her body was just a puppet.


	8. Chapter 8

That tore her in two: being a puppet of her own soul in such a way that she wasn’t sure she could call herself human anymore. Was this call sacrificing oneself for love? But where was the distance, the mourning, the moving on? All she had was loss, and it was only on her side. Kyousuke knew nothing different at all and perhaps he never would.

She could never tell him. And she doubted Kyouko, for all her ribbing, would tell him.

Her heart went out to Mami, now. She’d contracted so she’d survive and she become a living corpse.


	9. Chapter 9

Mami hadn’t known, she thought. Because she found it hard to believe that Mami would’ve been able to easily dismiss this. For all her kindness and selflessness, she’d desperately wanted to live. She’d wanted it badly enough that she continued fighting battles so she could live. She’d wanted it badly enough to make a selfish wish. She’d wanted it badly enough that she hadn’t asked for her family to be saved as well: she’d asked for her own life, and that was it.

Sayaka wondered what would have happened if she learnt she hadn’t saved her own life after all.


	10. Chapter 10

In the end though, Mami was dead twice over. Sayaka wasn’t but she was dying that second time and she knew it. She’d lost Kyousuke the moment she saved him, and she was losing her chance at a lie as well, when Hitomi stepped in. She’d lost Mami and Kyouko only pushed and pushed and pushed…

And the only person she could still protect was Madoka, but for how long? She couldn’t beat Kyouko. She couldn’t beat Homura. She couldn’t handle all the witches and familiars in the city well enough to curb Kyubey’s hunger.

Her gem was growing darker.


	11. Chapter 11

Kyouko scolded her. So did Homura. Neither of them had any right to scold her.

They took the news of their Soul Gems in stride. They didn’t care that they were dead walking instead of alive. They were alone: selfish and callous, disregarding the Familiars for the Witch that carried the true prize… But what of all the people who suffered in the meantime?

Mami’d protected them. If she’d been like Kyouko, like Homura, then Sayaka and Madoka would both be dead.

Now it was up to Sayaka to protect them.

And it wasn’t like it could cost her life.


	12. Chapter 12

Looking at Kyousuke and Hitomi was hard. Hitomi was what she could have been, should have been… but she’d chosen to be selfless instead and give that up, because Kyousuke loved the violin more than anything. A little selfishly, Sayaka wondered how long Hitomi would last in the face of that sort of love.

Looking at Madoka was hard too, because Madoka was kind and gentle and that was a cruel combination. If Madoka had been a little kinder, a little less gentle…

That was unfair, Sayaka knew. It weighed so heavily on her. It would have crushed Madoka underfoot.


	13. Chapter 13

She started seeing less of them: of Hitomi and Kyousuke, and eventually of Madoka as well. Kyouko, for some reason, she saw more of. Kyubey and Homura were more obsessed with Madoka and so they left her pertty much alone anyway.  
  
She was lonely. So lonely. But what else could she do? This was the price she'd paid for Kyousuke's happiness and it was a price that meant he had to be happy without her. This was the price she'd paid to keep Mami's legacy alive, to spare Madoka...  
  
It wouldn't mean a thing of Madoka did contract after all.


	14. Chapter 14

Sometimes, she wants Madoka to contract. Then they could fight together, share this all together, face their existential crises together. And yes, Madoka was affected when she found out - but she was still alive, whole and alive... and maybe a little scared as well, of her and Homura and Kyouko because they weren't whole and alive anymore. And it's not fair that Madoka had been spared because she allowed others to protect her, when Sayaka chose to fight for herself.  
  
But then she'd be glad Madoka didn't contract because at least she'd spared, at least she was safe and happy.


	15. Chapter 15

When was the last time she'd seen Madoka? She'd yelled at her, she remembered, but that was a lifetime ago. She'd fought and fought and fought in between. Fought Familiars that nobody fought and shadows of Witches she never found. The others were stealing her prey, probably. But let them. Her goal was to protect everyone and that meant indiscriminately finding them all.  
  
But she was weary, so weary. Her gem was darkening and her healing was sluggish. She was always dizzy. Always tired. She'd curl up and sleep for days, it felt like... and then fight all over again.


	16. Chapter 16

She needed coffee. She needed something far more potent than coffee. She needed a break. She needed the bits of her life she'd lost: all those relationships, that life without fighting... She needed her heart not being ripped out of her chest whenever she saw Kyousuke playing the violin because hadn't she made that wish fully prepared for this cost?  
  
No, thats a lie. Kyubey had omitted... and even so, nothing prepared her for the weight of forever. Kyouko had tried to warn her. She hadn't understood then.  
  
She can't stop now though. She can only save who she can.


	17. Chapter 17

It's a thankless job and she'd known that at the beginning but this, this without anyone supporting her, is so much worse. She hears them: careless, cursing people...

Are these the sort of people she's trying to spare? The people who tried to hit Kyousuke on the head with a beer bottle and got his hand instead. The people who talk about stealing and raping and killing casually like topics of the weather or their next meal...

Kyouko was right. These people weren't worth selflessness, worth thanklessness. Hitomi betrayed her. Kyousuke betrayed her. Madoka cowered behind her.

_No more, please._

 

 

 


End file.
